Hydrogen fuel cell car fan is impatient

I got some interesting reaction to my stories about advances in hydrogen fuel cell electric cars. One Californian was so enthusiastic that he promised me untold riches if I pull some strings for him:

"I am devoting my life to going green and will do just about anything to get a hydrogen fuel cell electric car!" he e-mailed. "I can't believe we have to wait until 2015! That is just way too long, and I would like to lay my whole life on the line just to show everyone how important I believe hydrogen and renewable energies are to our economical, environmental and securitial survival.

"Please sir, if you could point me in the direction of how to obtain either a new car or just a way to convert my car to hydrogen, I would do everything in my power with the rest of my life to repay you. I know this sounds farfetched, but I really do strongly believe full-hearted in making this change to set an example; an example of a young man without any fulfilled dreams and economic security, to lay everything I have down to get this and show the importance of our energy crisis!"

Now that's passionate. Unfortunately, as I pointed out before, these cars are unlikely to become commercially viable before 2015 at the very soonest. In his favor, California is likely to be one of the target areas if and when the cars begin rolling out.

Two other issues arose in the responses. One was posed by an elderly man from a local nursing home, who left me a voice mail message that basically suggested I'm an idiot for not considering what happened to the Hindenburg, the great hydrogen airship that exploded in a ball of flame in Lakehurst, N.J., in 1937.

"Hydrogen is one of the most dangerous there is," he said. "Can you imagine 30 or 40 cars parked on the street with hydrogen and it gets hit by lightning? It'd blow the whole damn town up!"

I addressed that issue in a column a couple of years ago and more recently on my blog in an entry titled "Hindenburg Schmindenburg." Many experts believe the Hindenburg did not blow up and burn because of hydrogen. The trigger never was established — static electricity seems most likely, although sabotage also has been discussed — but the fire most likely started in and was fueled by the flammable varnish that coated the airship's skin, they say.

As for the general safety of hydrogen, at the pump and in your vehicle, it's no more likely to blow the whole damn town up than gasoline or any other flammable fuel.

The other issue, raised by several readers, was my assertion of greenness because no petroleum products are involved in powering the car and its only discharge is water vapor.

One of them responded, "That is true if you look only at the operation of the car. But the hydrogen it uses is generated using fossil fuels, so the production of carbon dioxide and the consumption of fossil fuels is not eliminated, just transferred to somewhere else.

"The two main ways to produce hydrogen are steam reforming of natural gas (which releases carbon dioxide) and electrolysis of water using electricity. The electricity is generated mainly by using fossil fuels, which releases carbon dioxide.

"So having a 'clean' car is good for the local environment, but the overall use of fossil fuels in the energy production of hydrogen should be considered."

This is a good point. Although I did address it with people from Air Products and mentioned it on my blog, I didn't include it in those columns.

Air Products makes most of its hydrogen from natural gas, which is indeed a fossil fuel, albeit one we don't have to import from the Middle East. Nick Mittica, Air Products commercial manager for hydrogen energy systems, told me the company is experimenting with using renewable resources to produce hydrogen, but none of them are cost-effective enough yet for use on a large scale.

"Even if natural gas is used to produce hydrogen," he told me, "there still are greenhouse gas benefits. When you look at a 'well to wheels' analysis of emissions, going from natural gas to hydrogen in a fuel cell car reduces green house gas emissions by 50 percent.

"Does it make it go to zero? No. The real key is, here we have the technology where with every internal combustion car we replace, we can reduce greenhouse gases by 50 percent."

I have no idea whether this technology ever will become practical enough to make that California guy's dream come true. But given the importance of finding greener alternatives to practices that have been destructive to our planet, I'm glad to see so many auto companies pursuing it.